Every Friday here at Flavorwire, we like to gather up the week’s new movie trailers, give them a look-see, and rank them from worst to best — while taking a guess or two about what they might tell us (or hide from us) about the movies they’re promoting. This time around, we’ve got six new clips, ranging from the newest quirk-drenched comedy by the folks behind Little Miss Sunshine to a slice of cartoonish violence starring Billy Bob Thornton to The Channing Tatum Stripper Movie. Check ’em all out after the jump, and share your thoughts in the comments.
Magic Mike
Well, here it is, people. You might not recognize the title because everyone’s just been calling Magic Mike “The Channing Tatum Stripper Movie.” Yes, the one directed by Steven Soderbergh and co-starring Matthew McConaughey that’s based on Tatum’s own experiences as a 19-year-old stripper in Tampa. Considering how well-received The Girlfriend Experience was, it seems like Soderbergh is poised to become the auteur laureate of sex work tales — but don’t look for the gritty, minimalist realism of his best films here. Our first look at Magic Mike suggests it’s glossy and light, with Tatum playing the part of the exotic dancer with a heart of gold (and the burning ambition to be a furniture designer!). We’re guessing it’s going to be silly, but maybe this is just one of those dumbed-down trailers that Hollywood is so fond of.
Ruby Sparks
Fans of sweet, quirky Sundance-approved Indiewood fare should mark their calendar for July 25th, because they’ll want to see Ruby Sparks the minute it opens. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris — best known as the team behind Little Miss Sunshine — and written by Zoe Kazan, it stars Paul Dano as a young scribe whose life changes when vivacious character he’s writing comes to life. Kazan plays that role, meaning she’s created for herself the role of what certainly appears to be her real-life boyfriend’s custom-designed Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Kind of makes your head hurt, right, like an incredibly reflexive Weird Science reboot for bookish hipsters? While Ruby Sparks looks a bit too twee for our taste, we do like Kazan and Dano, and the supporting cast (Steve Coogan, Annette Bening, Alia Shawkat, True Blood‘s Deborah Ann Woll) is promising enough that we might just give it a chance to charm us.
Virginia
Well, this is exciting: the first trailer for Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s directorial debut. This is one of those infuriating trailers that seems to take half a second from every scene in the movie, but somehow avoids ever giving a good idea of what the plot will be. Still, despite the fact that this project has had a long and worrisome history, we’re not willing to count it out because we like Black and his leads so much. A bleach-blonde Jennifer Connelly plays the title role, a seemingly wild and drama-prone single mom; Ed Harris co-stars as her married, Mormon lover, a sheriff with political aspirations.
Polisse
This 2011 Cannes Jury Prize winner, which opens in limited release May 18th via Sundance Selects, is pretty much the opposite of the feel-good hit of the summer. A French drama set in Paris’ Child Protective Unit, the film follows the affair between a journalist sent to report on the unit and a police officer she’s covering. Of course, if the trailer is any indication, Polisse is hardly just about this ethically questionable romance — there appears to be ample focus on the children themselves, the government bureaucracy the characters are tangled up in, and the political drama surrounding them. The cinematography looks well-suited to the subject matter: simple, vivid, but intimate.
The Baytown Disco
So, here’s one we didn’t expect to entice us. The Baytown Disco finds Eva Longoria hiring a motley band of brothers to track down her godson and the no-good ex-husband (Billy Bob Thornton, of course) who kidnapped him. But while the description itself suggests overdone, Nic Cage-style fare, the trailer has a comic-book aesthetic and the kind of big-guns cartoon violence and dark sense of humor that recalls Quentin Tarantino. Sounds like it could be a fun ride.
Your Sister’s Sister
You know the indie and mainstream film industries are colliding when Emily Blunt puts on a pair of thick-rimmed black glasses. All joking aside, though, Your Sister’s Sister is going right on our to-see list. Written and directed by Lynn Shelton, who made the excellent low-budget comedy Humpday a few years back, it finds her re-teaming with Mark Duplass and enlisting two lovely famous ladies — Blunt and the wonderful Rosemarie DeWitt — as the sisters who both fall in love with him. Suspend your disbelief about Duplass’ stud potential and it looks like we’re in for a film that will probe every permutation of these three characters’ relationships with one another. Humpday was great because it waded through some awkward territory and explored male friendship in an entirely new way. Here’s hoping Your Sister’s Sister will do the same for heterosexual and sisterly love.